Suchergebnisse

AbstractAgricultural management has a great influence on biodiversity and its services in agroecosystems. In Europe, a relevant proportion of biodiversity is dependent on low-input agriculture. To assess the effects of agricultural management on biodiversity, in this study we surveyed the communities of arable plants, diurnal flying insects, and pollinators in three conventional and in two organic fields of a traditional Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum L.) crop of the Valdichiana area, in Tuscany (central Italy). The sampling was carried out twice during the season: in spring, during crop growing, and in summer, after crop harvesting. We assessed the effects of the different agricultural management on the richness and composition (species occurrence and abundance) of the three communities using univariate and multivariate analyses. Concerning our specific case study, only plant species richness was significantly higher in organic fields (15.7 ± 2.7 species per plot), compared to conventional ones (5.4 ± 2.3 species per plot). Regarding community composition, only pollinators showed a marginally significant difference between conventional and organic fields. Conversely, the effect of specific fields significantly explained differences in composition of all the investigated groups (plants, total insects, and pollinators). The results suggest that, in our case study, the emerged differences in diversity of the investigated communities were mainly attributable to environmental and management factors related to single fields, more than to organic or conventional farming. Such evidence could be partly due to the very local scale of the study, to the heterogeneity of the surveyed fields, and to the reduced number of surveyed fields. Further investigation is therefore needed.

The threat to the survival of many species, caused by emerging ecological crises, has favored the development of a new environmental awareness. In recent decades, especially in the most industrialized nations, an increasing participation of citizens in the collection of scientific data has also been recorded. The active involvement of society in different aspects of science has been defined by the sociologist Alan Irwin as "Citizen Science". Although environmental Citizen Science brings together the largest number of projects, the fields of application of this new way of doing science are innumerable. BioBlitz is one of the best-known examples of citizen science activities, aimed at monitoring the biodiversity of an area. The Maremma Natural History Museum, as part of its activities, regularly organizes BioBlitz on an annual basis, starting from 2013. During BioBlitz 2017 in the SPZ and SCZ "Monte Labbro and Alta Valle dell'Albegna" data were collected attesting the presence of 403 different taxonomic entities, of which 367 identified at the species level and 5 at the subspecies level. Six alien and 2 endemic species were identified. In terms of environmental legislation, 38 protected species and 7 endangered species were detected in the area. The most relevant aspect that emerges from the collected data is the consistent number of protected species. This confirms the environmental value of the area and the need for management and conservation plans for the entire site.